Gender rights online

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Pat Didomenco asks Is illegal bias lurking in your online job ad? when writing about bias in online employment ads, highlighting the recent American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint against Facebook and 10 employers that post ads on Facebook. The complaint alleges that Facebook used its ad-targeting features to target men, while not showing online ads for police officers, construction workers, truck drivers, and sales staff to women. Didomenco also points out discriminatory practices in age discrimination, and how to identify bias.

The World Bank announced the Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE) new report: Digital Jobs for Youth: Young Women in the Digital Economy. The report provides 'operational recommendations for the design and implementation of gender-inclusive digital jobs interventions for youth'. It also analyses initiatives that aim to close the gender gap in the digital economy, and makes recommendations on how to empower women, and close the gender gap in the digital economy.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and UN Women, in collaboration with the African Union Commission, have launched a new initiative to equip girls and young women in Africa with digital literacy skills. The African Girls Can CODE Initiative (AGCCI) is a four-year progamme that aims to train and empower girls and young women aged 17 to 20 years old across Africa to become computer programmers, creators and designers, and to take up studies and careers in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector. Over the next four years, the initiative plans to hold 14 coding camps across Africa, the last of which is planned to coincide with the 2022 African Union Summit. The main aim of the camps is to inspire young girls to build their computing and ICT skills through hands-on experiences.

The declaration from the G20 Digital Economy Ministerial Meeting in Salta, Argentina contains nine proposals in a dedicated annex, to foster women's participation in the digital economy, with the express purpose of helping diminish the digital gender divide. Raising awareness of the digital gender divide and collection of gender-disaggregated data to enable evidence-based action are examples of the proposals included in the document.

UNESCO welcomed the new revision of UNHRC Resolution A/HRC/38/L.10/Rev.1 'concerning the promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet', in particular, the re-affirmation that online human rights, especially those pertaining to freedom of expression, are the same rights online that are protected offline. The resolution decried significant abuses of human rights, such as attacks against journalists and women. At the same time, UNESCO noted progress on its project to define Internet Universality Indicators and the launch of the second draft of these R.O.A.M. indicators, which will 'help states and stakeholders to identify gaps within a country in relation to Internet Universality, and to make appropriate recommendations concerning policy and practice'.

Ms Dubravka Šimonović, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequences, emphasised online/ICT-facilitated violence against women and girls in her statement to the 38th session of the Human Rights Council. Her report aims to 'start the process of understanding how to effectively apply a human rights-based approach and human rights instruments to prevent and combat online violence against women as human rights violations'. Recognising that emerging modalities of violence of women share common roots with other forms of violence against women, she pointed out that 'The definition of violence against women should be inclusive of all acts of gender-based violence against women and girls which are committed, facilitated or aggravated by use of ICTs, as well as including threats of such acts.' Šimonović called for new laws and recommended that states should ensure a regulatory framework that includes women's human rights instruments that prohibit gender-based violence online, as well as other points. The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) welcomed the report, supporting mention of the role of Internet intermediaries and highlighting that 'responses to content that reinforces violence against women should be rooted in human rights norms and require clear definitions, consistent with the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality, and legitimacy, for what constitutes harmful content'.

Women's rights online address online aspects of traditional women rights with respect to discrimination in the exercise of rights, the right to hold office, the right to equal pay and the right to education. Women represent more than half of the world’s population, yet their participation in technology-mediated processes is an area where progress is still needed.

Protecting women's rights online

The protection of women’s rights online is part of a broader sociocultural and professional shift focusing attention on reducing discrimination and diminishing the bias in the exercise of rights, including for accessing educational and economic opportunities, holding office, and receiving equal pay. While access to the Internet has increased over the last two decades, gendered patterns of use create uneven opportunities and generate important gaps in the empowerment of girls and women across the globe.

With strengthened online participation, women’s involvement in public and political life has been on the rise, yet taking full advantage of the benefits of information communication technologies (ICTs) depends on eliminating a set of barriers such as inequality of access and technology-related violence against women. Among the acts of violence perpetrated via online means are cyberstalking, surveillance and privacy breaches, sexual harassment, and the unauthorised use and manipulation of personal information including images and videos. In the era of ubiquitous connectivity, creating safer online spaces with the cooperation of the Internet intermediaries comes into sharper focus as a first step towards the full realisation of women’s human rights and development.

Historically, girls and women have faced discrimination and major inequalities in education (including ICT specialisations), health, social welfare, political participation and justice. Many of these disparities between men and women in the enjoyment of fundamental rights have been perpetuated online. Violence, migration, conflict and crisis have also affected the wellbeing of women and their ability to fulfil their potential both offline and online, with important obstructions of their private sphere. The main international instruments for the protection of women’s rights are the 1952 Convention on the Political Rights of Women and the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Both UN Women and the UN Human Rights Council work actively on various dimensions of women’s rights. Mainstreaming the online facets of activities of existing women’s rights bodies remains challenging. Groups such as the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and the IGF Dynamic Coalition on Gender Rights have been actively involved in advocacy for women’s right online.

Support for women’s rights online is also offered by the World Wide Web Foundation’s Women’s Rights Online: Raising Voices. New research by the Web Foundation shows that ‘the dramatic spread of mobile phones is not enough to get women online, or to achieve empowerment of women through technology. The study, based on a survey of thousands of poor urban men and women across nine developing countries, found that while nearly all women and men own a phone, women are still nearly 50% less likely to access the Internet than men in the same communities, with Internet use reported by just 37% of women surveyed. Once online, women are 30-50% less likely than men to use the Internet to increase their income or participate in public life’. An infographic with key findings and the full report give more detail on the current situation.

Actors

UNCTAD is very active in the field of e-commerce. It assists developing countries in developing e-commerce legislation, through its e-Commerce and Law Reform Programme. The entity has launched the eTrade for All initiative, aimed to improving the ability of developing countries to use and benefit from e-commerce. As part of its ICT Policy Review Programme, UNCTAD undertakes reviews, research, and analysis on e-commerce-related issues. It also reviews national policies and provides policy advice to countries on areas such as developing e-commerce strategies and devising measures to strengthen e-commerce. UNCTAD holds an annual E-Commerce Week, featuring events focusing on specific policy areas of e-commerce.

UN WOMEN advocates for womenâs rights online through its work on gender mainstreaming, ending

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UN WOMEN advocates for womenâs rights online through its work on gender mainstreaming, ending violence against women, economic empowerment of women, and women in leadership. Some of the activities include Girls in ICT Day held in collaboration with the ITU; recognition of women empowering tech through the Equals in Tech Awards; as well as hackathons and support for women-owned tech businesses. The agency also provides gender data to support gender empowerment in UN policies.

The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) develops international standards (called recommendations) covering information and communications technologies. Standards are developed on a consensus-based approach, by study groups composed of representatives of ITU members (both member states and companies). These groups focus on a wide range of topics: operational issues, economic and policy issues, broadband networks, Internet protocol based networks, future networks and cloud computing, multimedia, security, the Internet of Things and smart cities, and performance and quality of service. The World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA), held every four years, defines the next period of study for the ITU-T.

The Commission promotes the adoption of practices and policies that enable the deployment of broadband network

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The Commission promotes the adoption of practices and policies that enable the deployment of broadband networks at national level, especially within developing countries. It engages in advocacy activities aimed to demonstrate that broadband networks are basic infrastructures in modern societies and could accelerate the achievement of the sustainable development goals. The Commission publishes an annual State of the Broadband Report, providing an overview of broadband network access and affordability, with country-by-country data measuring broadband access. Other reports, open letters, and calls for actions issues by the Commission also underline the benefits of broadband as a critical infrastructure towards achieving growth and development.

World Web Foundationâs work on womenâs rights online focusses on access for women. They provide research on access gaps particularly in developing and least developed countries. They also participate in policy making at global and national level and have for the past few years been advocating for gender responsive ICT policies in middle and low-income countries. Web Foundation also advances womenâs rights online by providing tools to enhance capacity of civil society actors in issues such as digital gender gap auditing and open data.

Resources

The session was moderated by Ms Nadira Bayat (Programme Director, Global Economic Governace (GEG) Africa), who started by stating that digital trade is growing very fast, expanding businesses, and empowering women. However, this growth has a lower impact for women, as they are not fully benefiting from the Internet. She stated the need to examine the approach of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) in balancing human rights values and digital trade. Bayat underlined that human rights principles are very important in addressing issues related to information and communication technologies (ICTs), and the access to ICTs by women and youth.

Ms Peggy Hicks (Director, Thematic Engagement, Special Procedures and Right to Development Division, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)) started her presentation by asking: What is the link between human rights and digital trade? She explained that the relationship between technology and trade is essential for the development of countries. There are many opportunities in digital trade, however, one of the big tensions is the lack of regulation in digital trade. According to Hicks, governments are not fully prepared to take on the new challenges of digital trade, while allowing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to do global business. She said that Africa needs to look at the models of best practices of developed countries, and to try to do better in moving towards effective regulation of digital trade. Hicks said that as a society, we need to invest in technology, and that 25% of African countries are working on increasing Internet access to tackle the digital divide. She emphasised the importance of technological investments, and access to jobs through digital materials. In addition, she gave the example of mobile payment system M-pesa in Kenya, that empowers women to do business.

Mr David Luke (Director and Coordinator of the African Trade Policy Centre at the Economic Commission for Africa)highlighted the work of the African group in the World Trade Organization (WTO). He said that the African Union (AU) is cautious about the work done in the e-commerce programme.

He talked about the conference on digital economy, organised in July 2018, in Nairobi, Kenya. He gave national examples on supporting digital trade in countries such as the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Rwanda, and South Africa. These countries are developing competitiveness of technical skills in digital trade. He pointed to Rwanda as a good example in helping and engaging youth in hub technology in order to tackle the digital divide.

Luke also said that there is no consensus on e-commerce policy issues between the member states of the AU. He pointed to the role of AfCTA, signed last March in Kigali, Rwanda, to help the continent deal with digital trade issues. He said that the agreement will cover goods, services, payment issues, and more. According to Luke, the gender divide needs to be examined carefully in order to develop ICT competences of women. He mentioned the lack of data regarding trade-related issues that women in business face.

Ms Ololade Shyllon (Human rights lawyer, and Head of Democracy, Transparency and Digital Rights Unit at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, South Africa) clarified the legal issues related to digital trade. She talked about hard laws and soft laws, and explained that African countries adopted an agreement on data protection in 2014. However, according to her, many of the countries are not ready to ratify the agreement due to challenges in privacy, data protection, and data localisation, among others.

Shyllon highlighted the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol). She mentioned that digital trade brings many opportunities, but that we also need to pay attention to the lack of digital skills in Africa. According to her, African countries are faced with challenges related to digital literacy, and language barriers while using the Internet.

The moderator concluded the session with remarks on the huge role of human rights in empowering women in the digital trade. She said that technology and human rights are not separate topics.

Multimedia

Publications

The latest edition of glossary, compiled by DiploFoundation, contains explanations of over 130 acronyms, initialisms, and abbreviations used in IG parlance. In addition to the complete term, most entries include a concise explanation and a link for further information.

The book, now in its sixth edition, provides a comprehensive overview of the main issues and actors in the field of Internet governance and digital policy through a practical framework for analysis, discussion, and resolution of significant issues. It has been translated into many languages.

Papers

The paper explains the rationale for the private sector and the media to engage in preventing and combating violence against women (VAW) and to offer practical advice and good practice examples. Case studies and examples are drawn from a range of employers and organisations, which demonstrate how various interventions and governmental mechanisms can be used to tackle the effects of violence against women and raise awareness of gender-based violence.

The paper focuses on a large number of women and girls in Jamaica specifically and in the Caribbean region more broadly who suffer from gender based violence in relation to the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that is being used to promote violence against women online and ofline and to undermine the rights of women.

Reports

The ITU ICT Facts and Figures 2017 report presents global information and communication technology updated statistics. It highlights particularly the number of youth online, mobile broadband statistics, and the persistence of the digital gender divide. It also notes the role of ICTs in the achievement of the SDGs.

The document, produced as part of the IGF 2015 inter-sessional work, gathers a variety of views and inputs on the multidimensional issue of online abuse of women and gender-based violence. It covers aspects such as: perpetrators and victims, types of behaviour and conducts, underlying factors and enabling environments, balancing rights and interests, impact and consequences, and solutions, responses, and/or strategies.

This report addresses internet freedom around the world and measures Internet freedom in different countries. Categories used are 'obstacles to access', 'limits on content', and 'violations of user rights'.

This study is based on a survey of thousands of poor urban men and women across nine developing countries and found that while nearly all women and men own a phone, women are still nearly 50% less likely to access the Internet than men in the same communities.

The report is a compilation of essays from journalists, academics and organisations in relation to online threats against female journalists. It features recommendations by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, on how participating States, media organisations and intermediaries can assist in ensuring that female journalists and media actors can work without fear and exercise their human right to freedom of expression.

GIP event reports

The session, organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) was moderated by Mr Alex Wong, Head of Global Challenge Partnerships at the World Economic Forum (WEF). Developing countries were at the centre of the discussion alongside the important gender gap underlined by Wong, considering the decreasing number of women connected to the Internet despite technology advances. The importance of involving stakeholders from the private and the public sectors in order to fill the gaps between countries and between men and women in the use of the Internet was repeatedly taken up by the panellists.

Mr Bocar Ba, CEO at the SAMENA Telecommunications Council, focused on the challenges, approaches, and opportunities to take into account in collaborations between the private sector and civil society. In his opinion, access to the Internet must become a basic human right, not only a basic human need. As regards the challenges, he considered the infrastructure a major obstacle to connecting people around the world because operators face extremely expensive fees when developing connectivity in developing countries. He underlined the need to make the Internet affordable; this can be improved if the private and public sectors work together. Concerning opportunities, he said that we are heading towards a digital economy that needs to better include the population and create new partnerships. Finally, regarding approaches, he noted that we already have the solutions on the table but that there is a need to increase collaboration to reach a common objective and to encourage cross-sector cooperation including between the education and health sectors.

The second panellist, Mr Michael Kende, Senior Fellow at the Internet Society, noted that trust in the use of the Internet is a major challenge, not only for developing countries but also for developed ones. He stated that there is a need to focus on and create a digital economy rather than just focusing on Internet access. He said that an important effort has been made in the last ten years regarding infrastructure and that the new challenge is to get more people and businesses online so they also benefit from the digital economy.

In the second part of his speech, Kende mentioned the Global Internet Report 2016, released by the Internet Society, which focuses on trust in the Internet and on data breaches. As mentioned in the report, he underlined the concern that with these breaches, there will be less trust in the use of the Internet, especially regarding sensitive information which is also a risk for companies’ reputation, particularly those that have been hacked. However, Kende stressed that companies also have strong protection via their terms and conditions which give them zero liability in the case of a breach. Therefore, as users are still the most vulnerable in these situations, he believes that there is a need for people to trust the system in order to build a strong ecosystem.

Ms Vanessa Erogbogbo, Head of the Empowering Women to Trade Programme at the International Trade Centre (ITC) stressed the importance of women in the digital economy. According to Erogbogbo, despite the growing presence of small companies on the Internet, women are still under represented. Thus, the ITC has taken several actions to unlock markets for women-owned small and medium enterprises (SMEs) under the She Trades initiative. The main aim of this initiative is to make women entrepreneurs visible to the international economy to increase visibility and networking. As part of this initiative, an Internet platform has been developed to help women secure government contracts, strike business deals, access markets, unlock financial services, and to grant ownership rights. Erogbogbo also underlined that the active role of women on the Internet is not only a concern for developing countries but also for developed ones. According to ITC data, only 6% of mobile application developers are women and in 2016, there were 257 million fewer women online, compared to 2015, which accentuates the growing gap in connectivity between men and women.

The final speaker, Ms Esperanza Magpantay, Senior Statistician at the ICT Data and Statistics Division at the ITU, regretted that there is still a large of number of developing countries which do not collect statistics on connectivity. She added that these statistics are also important for policymakers and investors to see which measures must be put in place. Magpantay focused on the results provided by the Measuring the Information Society Report 2016 which shows a steep rise in mobile cellular subscriptions and mobile broadband subscriptions and that mobile broadband networks reach 84% of global population and 67% of rural population. The report also stressed, as she mentioned, that there is a significant digital divide between developing and developed countries. Moreover, the report gives an ICT Development Index which emphasises a strong association between economic and ICT developments. The report gives several indications about the evolution of mobile cellular prices and broadband prices but it also shows several gaps between men and women or for people living in rural areas who are less likely to own or use a mobile phone than those living in urban areas. Other important points also emerge from the report according to Magpantay. The benefits of the Internet are still unavailable to over half the world’s population. Most people who have access to Internet services do not actually use them. It also shows that the full potential of the Internet remains untapped, especially for low-income and less educated users. In addition, access to the Internet as such is not enough; skills are needed to take full advantage of what it offers.

The discussion ended with a Q&A which pointed out the importance of cultural and political obstacles faced by women across the world regarding the use of the Internet. Erogbogbo added that the legal barrier is also an important element considering that gender inequality is in some cases written into law. The panel agreed on the fact that more collaboration between the different stakeholders is needed, not only in developing countries but also in developed ones.

Other resources

The Feminist Principles of the Internet are a set of statements that together provide a framework for women's movements to articulate and explore issues related to technology. They offer a gender and sexual rights lens on critical internet-related rights.

The principles were drafted at the first "Imagine a Feminist Internet" meeting that took place in Malaysia in April 2014. The meeting was organised by the Association for Progressive Communications and brought together 50 activists and advocates working in sexual rights, women’s rights, VAW, and internet rights.

The toolkit for researching women’s Internet access and use, a collaboration between Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), the World Wide Web Foundation, the GSMA and Association for Progressive Communications, offers support for researchers from all stakeholder groups to find and use appropriate quantitative and qualitative gender data. It includes information on 'how to conduct research involving women as well as a diversity of resources useful for investigating internet access and use, designing a research project and analysing data'.

PEN America’s Online Harassment Field Manual was created to give people resources, tools, and tips to help them respond safely and effectively to incidents of online harassment and hateful speech, and to encourage them to stay online, to keep speaking out, and to keep writing. Featuring first-person interviews with writers and journalists who have been targeted online and who refuse to be silenced along with comprehensive information about how to enhance cybersecurity, establish supportive online communities, confront online abuse head-on, practice self-care, and engage law enforcement during severe episodes of harassment, the Field Manual also offers best practices to allies of writers and journalists as well as the institutions that employ them. We invite you to explore everything the Field Manual has to offer, and to share this information widely with your social and professional networks. Source

The Action Plan provides the framework for critical actions to foster and accelerate inclusive and sustainable development by closing the digital gender gap and harnessing the transformative potential of ICTs for women’s empowerment, their equal participation in the digital society.

IGF 2016 Report

Gender issues were discussed in several sessions at the IGF 2016 meeting. The Best Practice Forum on Gender and Access underlined the need to more strongly support the empowerment of girls and women, and looked at several challenges and barriers, such as the effect of culture and norms, lack of women in decision-making roles, and relevant policies. Several calls were made to more intensively promote the rights of women on the Internet and to tackle the increasing gender violence online (Open Forum: Freedom Online Coalition - OF27).

WSIS Forum 2016 Report

Issues related to the empowerment of girls and women through ICTs were discussed in several sessions. The role of ICTs in promoting and accelerating access to education for girls and women was explored in Harnessing ICTs for Greater Access to Education for Girls and Women (session 176). The importance of the gender gap, support for choices, and the roles that parents and women play in supporting choices were discussed, among other important topics. UNESCO projects, the Africa Engineering Week, and other examples highlighted increasing possibilities for girls. Acceleration of Girls Education and Rights to Ensure Sustainable Gender Empowerment Through ICTs (session 157) pointed out the importance of including ICT skills in educational system curricula to give girls equal opportunities in ICTs from an early age. Getting to school in the first place, learning about ICTs, mastering the skills, and gaining the confidence to enter the related fields were all mentioned as steps to ensuring a healthy environment for all children.

The workshop on Tech-related Gender Violence x Freedom of Expression (WS 196) explicitly dealt with the tension between gender protection and the right to free speech. At the other end of the spectrum, several sessions addressed cases in which Internet content is censored by governments to establish digital control over their citizens. For example, Information Controls in the Global South (WS 224) addressed the challenges faced by civil society to have a meaningful impact when faced with information censorship.

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